Critical analysis has suggested that Poe wrote the story as a form of literary revenge against a woman named Elizabeth F. Ellet and her circle.

Both Hop-Frog and his best friend, the dancer Trippetta (also small, but beautiful and well-proportioned), have been stolen from their homeland and essentially function as slaves.

The powerful men laugh at the expense of the two servants and ask Hop-Frog (who suddenly becomes sober and cheerful) for advice on an upcoming masquerade.

The men love the idea of scaring their guests and agree to wear tight-fitting shirts and pants saturated with tar and covered with flax.

They quickly catch fire: "In less than half a minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken, and without the power to render them the slightest assistance".

In a letter to friend Nancy Richmond, Poe wrote: "The 5 prose pages I finished yesterday are called — what do you think?

As Poe had been pursuing relationships with Sarah Helen Whitman and Nancy Richmond (whether romantic or platonic is uncertain), members of literary circles in New York City spread gossip and incited scandal about alleged improprieties.

The jester Hop-Frog, like Poe, is "kidnapped from home and presented to the king" (his wealthy foster father John Allan), "bearing a name not given in baptism but 'conferred upon him'" and is susceptible to wine ... when insulted and forced to drink becomes insane with rage".

At the suggestion of a Norman squire, the king and five others dressed as Wild Men in highly flammable costumes made with pitch and flax.

[7] Citing Barbara Tuchman as his source, Jack Morgan, of the University of Missouri–Rolla, author of The Biology of Horror, discusses the incident as a possible inspiration for "Hop-Frog".